Environmental Sustainability and Resilience has been identified as one of the six key regional themes in the Hunter JO Strategic Plan 2035.
The Hunter is predicted to experience increased extreme weather and natural hazards, with the effects of this already impacting the region. Many of the region’s communities are struggling to recover from the continual and combined impacts of more frequent and severe disasters.
The Hunter JO’s resilience program aims to respond to the increasing risks and effects of climate change and enable Councils to increase resilience and embed place-based solutions and responses through the region.
Disaster Ready Fund
Hunter JO has been funded for three years from 2025 – 2028 under Round 2 of the Disaster Ready Fund for our project “Disaster Resilience Capacity Building for the Hunter and Central Coast”.
This project will build disaster resilience capacity and capability within 11 Hunter and Central Coast councils and their communities. This will be achieved by supporting development of a regional Disaster Adaptation Plan, embedding resilience into councils’ IP&R framework, facilitating a regional resilience network and supporting community engagement.
Deliverables include:
- Regional Disaster Adaptation Plan – Supporting NSW RA and facilitating collaboration and codesign with councils towards the delivery of a Foundational DAP for the region.
- Collaboration – Facilitating collaboration between councils through the Hunter Resilience Network, IP&R and DAP Working Groups.
- Capacity building for councils – Flexibility to respond to councils’ capacity building needs, for example, disaster waste management and resource sharing MOU.
- Project / Grant readiness support – Building council capacity to apply and be successful for grant funding.
- Simtable – Facilitating Simtable loans and community workshops to improve community understanding of and preparation for natural hazards.
- Resilience Maturity Matrix / Template – Developing a model to track councils’ resilience maturity over time, aligned with councils across NSW.
- IP&R Resilience review – Completing a comparative review of councils’ 2022-26 and 2025-29 IP&R documents, assessing inclusion of climate change resilience concepts.
- Disaster Dashboard – Provision of 50% funding towards a 3-year council subscription fee for Disaster Dashboards (for participating councils)
For more information, contact the team at resilience@hunterjo.nsw.gov.au
This ‘Disaster Resilience Capacity Building for the Hunter and Central Coast’ Project received funding from the Australian Government.
Disaster Risk Reduction Fund projects
Hunter JO was funded under the Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Fund (BCRRF) and the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (DRRF) between 2021 – 2024 to deliver several projects to build resilience in the Hunter region.
Case Studies
Resilience Needs and Opportunities Analysis
The Resilience Needs and Opportunities Analysis was completed over 60 LGAs and across seven JO/ROC regions. The objectives were to identify available data and information, synthesise the data collected to identify resilience gaps and needs for each LGA, and identify resilience opportunities at a regional level for the Hunter region and statewide.
We’ve put together a Resilience Needs and Opportunities Analysis Summary Report to make it easier to interpret the project outputs. The Summary Report outlines;
- Project scope and purpose
- Councils’ role in building resilience
- Needs and Opportunities Analysis components, strengths and limitations
- Linkages with IP&R including how to include actions from the Needs Analysis in the IP&R
- Regional-scale opportunities
- Next steps and implementation
The findings of this work will inform councils and JOs of their priority areas to build risk reduction and can be incorporated into the future development of Disaster Adaptation Plans.
To get a copy of your LGA’s Needs Analysis Report, please contact resilience@hunterjo.nsw.gov.au
Resilience Resource Sharing Review
To effectively respond to and recover from natural disasters, councils need access to a range of resources, including personnel, plant and equipment. Hunter and Central Coast councils identified an opportunity to better support each other during and after disasters by more effectively sharing resources. A formalised resource sharing arrangement can increase efficiency for information sharing of personnel, plant and skills to supports LGAs most in need.
The Hunter and Central Coast Resilience Resource Sharing Review sought to further test the idea of regional resource sharing and the logistics required to set up governance arrangements. The Regional Resilience Resource Sharing Review factsheet provides an overview of the process and next steps.
The BCRRF and DRRF were jointly funded by the Australian and New South Wales governments. Although funding for these projects has been provided by both the Australian and NSW Governments, the material contained herein does not necessarily represent the views of either Government.
Want to Know More?
If you are interested in joining our Hunter JO Resilience Network, have any questions on our disaster adaptation and resilience work or wanted to discuss future opportunities, reach out to resilience@hunterjo.nsw.gov.au
